FORMATION OF HABITS IN THE TURTLE. 521 



desire for food is very irregular and hard to control as a motive in ex- 

 perimental work. 



The method of experimentation was simple. A box three feet 

 long, two feet wide and ten inches deep was divided into four 

 portions by partitions, also ten inches deep, arranged as shown in 

 Fig. 1. In each partition was a hole four inches long and two 

 inches deep, just large enough to permit the turtle to pass through 

 easily. The box is shown in ground plan by Fig. 1. 



A is the space in which the animal was placed to start, the start- 

 ing-point being marked by a dot (.). The corner marked nest con- 

 tained a mass of damp grass and was darkened. When every- 

 thing was ready for an experiment the animal was placed in A at 

 the dot and allowed to wander about until it found the nest by 

 passing through the openings marked 1, 2 and 3. 



On July 20 the animal, a speckled turtle about four inches 

 long which was found in Woods Holl, Mass., was placed in A for 



Fig. 1. Plan of Labyrinth No. 1. 



Fig. 2. Course for Fourth Trip. 



the first time. After wandering about almost constantly for thirty- 

 five minutes, it chanced to find the nest, into which it immediately 

 crawled, there remaining until taken out for another experiment 

 two hours later. The observations were made from one to two hours 

 apart, in order to avoid fatiguing the animal, and also to leave it some 

 inducement for seeking the nest, for if it were taken out each time as 

 soon as it got back to the comfortable corner, the game would soon lose 

 interest. The second time the nest was reached in fifteen minutes, 

 with much less wandering. The time for the third trip was five minutes, 

 and for the fourth, three minutes thirty seconds. During the first three 

 trials the courses taken were so tortuous that it seemed foolish to try 

 to record them. There was aimless wandering from point to point 

 within each space, and from space to space. After the third trip the 

 routes became much more direct, and accurate records of them were 

 obtained. Fig. 2 gives the course taken in the fourth experiment. It 

 is fairly direct, but shows that the animal lost its way in A and again in 

 B; having passed through 2, it took the shortest path to the nest. 



